DIRECT ACTION
by Emile PougetPublished by the Fresnes-Antony Group of
the French Anarchist Federation, 1994English translation by
the Kate Sharpley Library

What we mean by "Direct Action"

Direct Action is the symbol of revolutionary unionism in action. This formula is representative of the twofold battle against exploitation and
oppression. It proclaims, with inherent clarity, the direction and
orientation of the working class's endeavours in its relentless attack
upon capitalism.

Direct Action is a notion of such clarity, of such self-evident
transparency, that merely to speak the words defines and explains them.
It means that the working class, in constant rebellion against the
existing state of affairs, expects nothing from outside people, powers
or forces, but rather creates its own conditions of struggle and looks
to itself for its means of action. It means that, against the existing
society which recognises only the citizen, rises the producer. And that
that producer, having grasped that any social grouping models itself
upon its system of production, intends to attack directly the capitalist
mode of production in order to transform it, by eliminating the employer
and thereby achieving sovereignty in the workshop - the essential
condition for the enjoyment of real freedom.

The Negation of Parliamentarism

Direct Action thus implies that the working class subscribes to
notions of freedom and autonomy instead of genuflecting before the
principle of authority. Now, it is thanks to this authority principle,
the pivot of the modern world - Democracy being its latest incarnation -
that the human being, tied down by a thousand ropes, moral as well as
material, is denied any opportunity to display will and initiative.

From this negation of Parliamentarism, false, and hypocritical, and
the ultimate form of the crystallisation of authority, arises the entire
syndicalist method. Direct Action therefore arises as simply the
fleshing out of the principle of freedom, its realisation in the masses;
no longer in abstract, vague, indistinct forms, but rather as clear-cut,
practical notions inspiring the rebelliousness that the times require: it is
the destruction of the spirit of submissiveness and resignation that
degrades individuals and turns them into willing slaves - and a
blossoming of the spirit of revolt, the factor fertilising human
societies.

This fundamental and complete rupture between capitalist society and
the world of labour, as encapsulated in Direct Action, was articulated
by the International Working Men's [sic] Association in its motto: "The
emancipation of the workers will be carried out by the workers
themselves." And it made a contribution towards making a reality of this
divorce by attatching supreme importance to economic associations. But
confused still was the influence it would attribute to them.
However, the IWMA had an inkling that the work of social transformation
has to begin at the bottom, and that political changes are merely a
consequence of amendments made to the system of production. That is why
it hailed the action of trades associations and, naturally, legitimised
the procedure of expressing their vitality and influence, appropriate to
the body in question - and which is nothing other than Direct Action.

Direct Action is in fact the normal function of the unions and their
reason for being; it would be a glaring nonsense for such associations
to restrict themselves to bringing the waged together, in order to
better adapt them to the fate reserved for them in bourgeois society -
production for others. It is all too evident that, in the unions,
persons of no particularly clear cut social outlooks band together for
the purposes of self-defence, in order to struggle first hand and as
individuals. The community of interests attracts them there; they
gravitate towards it instinctively. There, in that nursery of life, the
work of fermentation, elaboration and education is made; the union
raises the consciousness of workers blinkered still by the prejudices
inculcated into them by the ruling class; it opens their eyes wide to
the overriding necessity of struggle, of revolt; it prepares them for
social battles by marshalling their concerted efforts. From such
instruction, it follows that every individual must act without ever
offloading on to others the task of acting in their place. It is in
these gymnastics that the individual is imbued with a with a sense of
her own worth, and in extolling such worth lies the fertilising power
of Direct Action. It marshals human resourcefulness, tempers characters
and focuses energies. It teaches self-confidence! And self-reliance! And
self-mastery! And acting for oneself!

Now, if we compare the methods in use in democratic associations or
groupings, we find that they have nothing in common with this constant
tendency to raise consciousness, nor with this adaptation to action that
permeates human being from the strangle-hold of
passivity and listlessness wherein democratism tends to confine and
paralyse her. It teaches her will-power, instead of mere obedience, and
to embrace her sovereignty instead of conferring her part upon a representative. By so doing, it shifts the axis of social orientation,
so that human energies, instead of being squandered upon harmful and
depressing activity, derive from their legitimate expenditure the
necessary sustenance for their continued development.

Expropriatory Education

Fifty years ago, in the time around 1848, back in the days when
republicans still believed in something, they admitted how much of an
illusion, how much of a lie and how powerless the representative system
was and they searched for ways to overcome its defects. Rittinghausen,
too mesmerised by the political frippery which she supposed was crucial
to human progress, reckoned that she had found a solution in the
shape of "direct representation". Proudhon, on the other hand, presaging
revolutionary unionism, spoke of the coming economic federalism that would bypass, with all of life's superiority, the sterile notions of the whole
political set-up; the economic federalism being hatched from within the
workers' organisations implies the recuperation by trades bodies of
certain useful functions, thanks to which the State conjures up
illusions as to its raison d'etre, and at the same time, the elimination
of its noxious, restrictive and repression functions, thanks to which
capitalist society is perpetuated.

But for this burgeoning of society to become a possibility,
preparatory work must first have drawn together within the existing
society those elements whose role it will be to make it happen. This is
the task assumed by the working class. just as a building is built from
the foundations up, so this internal undertaking which involves both the
dismantling of the factors making up the old world and incubating the
new edifice starts from the bottom up. No longer is it a matter of
taking over the State, nor of tinkering with its cogs or changing its
personnel: the point is to transform the mechanism of production, by
doing away with the boss in workshop and factory, and replacing
production for profit with production in common, for the benefit
of all ... the logical consequence of which is the ruination of the
State.

The work of expropriation has begun; step by step it is pursued by
day to day struggles against the current master of production, the
capitalist; her privileges are undermined and eaten away, the legitimacy
of her leadership and mastery functions is denied, and the charge that
she levies upon everyone's output on the pretext of recompense for
capital investment, is considered theft. So, little by little, he is
being bundled out of the workshop - until such time as he can be driven
out entirely and forever.

All of this, this burrowing from within, escalating and intensifying
by the day, is Direct Action rampant. And when the working class, having
grown in strength and consciousness, is ready to take possession and
gets on with doing just that, that too will be Direct Action!

Once the expropriation of capital is underway, and when the railway
companies find their shares - the "diplomas" of the financial
aristocracy - rendered worthless, and when the parasitical retinue of
rail directors and other magnates can no longer survive in idleness, the
trains will continue to operate ... And this is because the railway
workers will have taken things into their own hands; their revolutionary union
having turned from a fighting group into a production association, will
thereafter take charge of running operations - and not now with an eye
to personal gain, nor yet for plain and simple corporative motives, but
for the common good.

What will be done in the case of the railways will be replicated
in every sphere of production.

But if this task of liquidating the old world of exploitation is to
prosper, the working class has to be familiarised with the conditions
for realisation of the new social order, and must have acquired the
capacity and will to realise this for itself: it must rely, in facing up
to the difficulties that will crop up, solely upon its own direct
efforts, on the capabilities that it possesses within itself, rather
than on the graciousness of "go-betweens", providential Men, these
new-style bishops. In the latter case, exploitation would not be
eradicated and would persist under a different guise.

The revolution is the work of day-to-day action

Thus, to prepare the way, the restrictive notions, the dead formulae
that stand for a persistent past, must be replaced with ideas that point
us in the direction of indispensible demonstrations of will. Now, these
new ideas cannot but derive from systematic implementation of direct
action methods. Of this is, in fact, from the profound current of
autonomy and human solidarity, intensified by practical action that
erupts and fleshes out the idea of replacing the present social
disorder with a form of organisation wherein labour alone has a place
and every individual will be free to give expression to her personality
and her faculties.

This task of laying the groundwork for the future is, thanks to
Direct Action, in no way at odds with the day to day struggle. The
tactical superiority of Direct Action resists precisely in its
unparalleled plasticity: organisations actively engaged in the practice
are not required to confine themselves to beatific waiting for the
advent of social changes. They live in the present with all
possible combativity, sacrificing neither the present to the future, nor
the future to the present. It follows from this, from this capacity for
facing up simultaneously to the demands of the moment and those of the
future and from this compatibility in the two-pronged task to be carried
forward, that the ideal for which they strive, far from being
overshadowed or neglected, is thereby clarified, defined and made more
discernible.

Which is why it is both inane and false to describe revolutionaries
drawing their inspiration from Direct Action methods as "advocates of
all-or-nothing". True, they are advocates of wresting EVERYTHING from
the bourgeoisie! But, until such time as they will have amassed
sufficient strength to carry through this task of general expropriation,
they do not rest upon their laurels and miss no chance to win partial
improvements which, being achieved at some cost to capitalist
privileges, represent a sort of partial expropriation and pave the way
to more comprehensive demands.

From which it is plain that Direct Action is the plain and simple
fleshing-out of the spirit of revolt: it fleshes out the class struggle,
shifting it from the realm of theory and abstraction into the realm of
practice and accomplishment. As a result, Direct Action is the class
struggle lived on a daily basis, an ongoing attack upon capitalism.

Which is why it is so despised by the politicians - a breed apart -
who had set themselves up as the "representatives" or "bishops" of
democracy. Now, should the working class, scorning democracy, go a step
further and look for some alternative path, on the terrain of economics,
what is to become of the "go-betweens" who used to pose as the
proletariat's spokesmen?

Which is why it is even more despised and repremanded by the
bourgeoisie! The latter sees its demise rudely accelerated by the fact
that the working class, drawing strength and increasing confidence from
Direct Action, and breaking definitely with the past, and relying
upon its own resources to espouse an entirely new mentality, is on its way
to constructing an entirely new environment.

The necessity of effort

It is such a commonplace that there has to be struggle against all
the manner of obstacles placed in the way of mankind's development that
it may seem paradoxical to have to extol the necessity of effort.

Besides action, in fact, what else is there but inertia, spinelessness
and passive acceptance of slavery? In times of depression and inertia,
Women are degraded to the status of beasts of burden, slaves trapped in
hopeless toil; their minds are stultified, constipated and thoughtless;
their prospects are limited; they cannot imagine the future, nor suppose
that it will be any improvement upon the present.

But up pops action! They are shaken from their torpor, their decrepit
brains start to work and a radiant energy transforms and transfigures
the human masses.

Because action is the salt of life ... Or, to put it more plainly and
simply, it is life itself! To live is to act .. To act is to be alive!

The catastrophic miracle

But these are banalities! Yet, the point has to be laboured, and the
effort glorified, because stultifying education has washed over the
older generation and planted debilitating notions in its ranks. The
futility of effort has been elevated to the status of a theory and it
has been given out that any revolutionary achievement would flow from
the ineluctable course of events; catastrophe, it was proclaimed, would
come to pass automatically. Just as soon as, in the ineluctable course
of events, capitalist institutions would reach a point of maximum
tension. Whereupon they would explode by themselves! Effort by woman in
economic terms was proclaimed redundant, her action against the
restrictive environment besetting her were affirmed futile. She was left
but one hope: that she might infiltrate her own into the bourgeois
parliaments and await the inevitable unleashing of catastrophe.

We were taught that this would come to pass mechanically and
inescapably when the time was ripe; with concentration of capital being
effected through the immanent laws of capitalist production itself, the
number of the capitalist magnates, usurpers and monopolists was
spiralling ever downwards .. so that a day would come when, thanks to
the conquest of political power, the people's elected representatives
would use law and decree to expropriate this handful of great capitalist
barons.

What a perilous and stultifying illusion such passive waiting for the
coming of the Messiah-revolution represents! And how many years or
centuries will it take to capture political power? And even then,
supposing that it has been captured, will the number of capitalist
magnates have fallen sufficiently by that point? Even allowing that the
expansion of trusts may have swallowed up the medium bourgeoisie, does
it follow that they will have been thrust down into the ranks of the
proletariat? Will they not, rather, have carved themselves out a place
in the trusts and will the numbers of parasites living without producing
a thing not be at least the same as they are today? If the answer is
yes, can we not suppose that the beneficiaries of the old society will
put up a fight against the expropriating laws and decrees?

An equal number of problems would be posed, before which the working
class would be powerless and bewildered as to what to do, should it have
made the mistake of remaining mesmerised by the hope of a revolution's
coming to pass in the absence of any direct effort on its part.

The so-called "iron law"

Even as we were being bamboozled with this messianic faith in the
Revolution, to stultify us even further and the better to persuade us
that there was nothing that could be attempted, nothing to be done, and
in order to plunge us even deeper into the mire of inaction, we were
indoctrinated with the "iron law of wages". We were taught that, under
this relentless formula (primarily the work of Ferdinand Lassalle), in
today's society any effort is a waste of time, any action futile, in
that the economic repercussions soon restore the poverty ceiling through
which the proletariat cannot break.

Under this iron law - which was then made into the keystone of
socialism - it was proclaimed that "as a general rule, the average wage
would be no more than what the worker strictly required for survival'.
And it was said: "That figure is governed by capitalist pressure alone
and this can even push it below the minimum necessary for the working
woman's subsistence ... The only rule with regard to wage levels is the
plentiful or scarce supply of woman-power ..."

By way of evidence of the relentless operation of this law of wages,
comparisons were made between the worker and a commodity: if there is a
glut of potatoes on the market, they are cheap; if they are scarce, the
price rises ... It is the same with the working woman, it was said: her
wages fluctuate in accordance with the abundant or short of labour!

Against the relentless arguments of this absurd reasoning, no voice
was raised: so the law of wages may be taken as right .. for as long as
the working woman is content to be a commodity! For as long as, like a
sack of potatoes. she remains passive and inert and endures the
fluctuations of the market ... For as long as she bends her back and puts
up with all of the bosses' snubs, ... the law of wages functions.

But things take a different turn the moment that a glimmer of
consciousness stirs this worker-potato into life. When, instead of
dooming herself to inertia, spinelessness, resignation and passivity,
the worker wakes up to her worth as a human being and the spirit of
revolt washes over her: when she bestirs herself, energetic, wilful and
active; when, instead of rubbing shoulders absently with her neighbours
(like a potato alongside other potatoes) and comes into contact with
them, reacts with them, and they in turn respond to her; once the labour
bloc comes to life and bestirs itself .. then, the laughable equilibrium
of the law of wages is undone.

A novel factor: the will of the worker!

A novel factor has appeared on the labour market: the will of the
worker! And this factor, unknown when it comes to setting the
price of a bushel of potatoes, has a bearing upon the setting of wages;
its impact may be large or small, according to the degree of tension of
the labour force, which is a product of the accord of individual wills
beating in unison - but, whether it be strong or weak, there is no
denying it.

Worker cohesion thus conjures up against capitalist might, a might
capable of standing up to it. The inequality between the two adversaries
- which cannot be denied when the exploiter is confronted only by the
working woman on her own - is attenuated in proportion with the degree of
cohesion achieved by the labour bloc. From then on, proletarian
resistance, be it latent or acute, is an everyday phenomenon: disputes
between labour and capital quicken and become more acute. Labour does
not always emerge victorious from these partial struggles: however, even
when defeated, the workers in struggle still reap some benefit:
resistance from them has obstructed pressure from the employers and
often forced the employer to grant some of the demands put. In this case
the character of high solidarity in revolutionary unionism is vindicated: the
result of the struggle brings benefits to untrustworthy, less conscious
brothers, and the strikers relish the moral delights of having fought
for the welfare of all.

That labour's cohesion leads to wage increases is acknowledged with
quite good grace by the theoreticians of the "iron law". The facts are
so tanglible that they would be hard put to it to offer a serious
rebuttal. But they protest that, in parallel with the wage increases,
there is an increase in the cost of living, so that there is no increase
in the worker's purchasing power and the benefits of her higher pay are
thereby nullified.

There are circumstances in which we do find such repercussions: but
the rise in living costs, in direct association with the rise in pay is
not so constant that it can be taken as axiomatic. Moreover, when such
rises occur, this is - in most instances - proof that the worker, after
having struggled in her producer capacity against her boss, has
neglected to look to her interests in her capacity as consumer. Very
often it is the passivity of the purchaser vis-a-vis the trader, of the
tenant vis a vis the landlord, etc., that allows the landlords, traders,
etc., to claw back from added levies upon the working woman as consumer
the benefit of the improvements that she has extracted as producer.

Furthermore, the irrefutable proof that wage levels need not
necessarily result in parallel increases in the cost of living is
furnished by countries where working hours are short and wages high:
Life there is less expensive and less restricted than in countries where
working hours are long and wages low.

Wages and the cost of living

In England, the United States and Australia, the working day often
lasts eight hours (nine at most), with weekends off, yet wages there are
higher than among us. In spite of which life is easier there. First
because, over six working days, or better yet, over five and a half
(work grinding to a halt by the Saturday afternoon in most cases), the
worker earns enough to support herself through the seven days of the
week: then because, as a general rule, the cost of basic necessities is
lower than in France, or at any rate more affordable, in terms of wage
levels. (1)

Such findings invalidate the "iron law". Especially so as it cannot
be argued that the high pay rates of the countries in question are
merely the consequence of woman-power shortages. In the United States as
well as in Australia, and in England too, unemployment bites deep. So it
is plain that if working conditions in those countries are better, it is
because in their establishment there is a factor at work other
than plentiful or restricted supply of labour: the will of the workers!
Such improved conditions are the results of workers' efforts, of the
determination of the worker to refuse to accept a vegetative, restricted
life, and they were won through the struggle against Capital. However,
no matter how violent the economic skirmishes that improved these
conditions may have been, they have not created a revolutionary
situation: they have not pitted labour against capital, in a face to face
confrontation between enemies. The workers have not - at any rate not as
a body - attained class consciousness: thus far their aspirations have
been unduly modest, at the aspiration to accommodation with the
existing society. But times change! The English, the Yanks
and the rest are in the process of acquiring the class consciousness
that they were lacking.

If we move on from examining high-wage, shorter-hours societies to
look at our own peasant regions where, confident of finding an ignorant,
compliant population, a number of industrialists have set up their
factories, we find the opposite phenomenon: wages there are very low and
working conditions unduly demanding. The reason is that since the will
of the workers there is lethargic, it is capitalist pressure alone that
determines the working conditions; the working woman, still ignorant of
and unfamiliar with her own strength, is still reduced to the status of
a "commodity", so that she is prey to the unmitigated operation of the
supposed "law of wages". But should a spark of revolt bring to life the
victim of exploitation, the situation will be changed! The dust of
humanity, which is what the proletarian masses have been up to now, need
only be compacted into a revolutionary union bloc and the pressures from
the bosses will be countered by a force that may be weak and clumsy in
its beginnings but which will soon increase in might and consciousness.

And so the light of experience shows just how illusory and false this
alleged "iron law of wages" is. "Law of iron," is it? Pull the other one!
It isn't even a law of rubber!

The unfortunate thing is that the consequences of the penetration of
the world of labour by that fateful formula have been more serious than
mere flawed argument. Who can say how much suffering and disappointment
it has engendered? For too long, alas, the working class has reclined
and dozed upon this false pillow. There was a logical connection: the
theory that effort was futile spawned inaction. Since the pointlessness
of action, the futility of struggle, the impossibility of immediate
improvement had been proclaimed, every vestige of revolt was stifled.
Indeed, what was the point of fighting, once effort had been identified
in advance as pointless and unproductive, when one knew that one was
doomed to failure? Since struggle promised only blows - with no hope of
even slight benefit - was it not the wiser course to remain calm?

And that was the argument that ruled the roost! The working class
accommodated itself to an apathy that played right into the hands of the
bourgeoisie. Thus, when, under pressure of circumstance, the workers
were driven into a dispute, it was only with a heavy heart that the
gauntlet was picked up: striking even came to be reputed as an evil to
be endured if it could not be averted and one to which one resigned
oneself with no illusion that any real improvement might issue from a
favourable outcome.

Overwhelming evil is not the seed of rebellion!

Parallel to this crippling belief in the impossibility of breaking
through the vicious circle of the "iron law of wages", and by way of a
warped deduction from this "law", that trusting to the revolution's
coming to pass as events unfolded without assistance, without any
intervening effort on the part of the workers, some people rejoiced if
they could detect any increase in "pauperisation", the worsening of
misery, employer arbitrariness, government oppression, and the like. To
listen to these poor logicians, the Revolution just had to sprout from
overwhelming evil! So every upsurge in misery and calamity, etc., struck
them as good thing, hastening the fateful hour.

A crack-brained error! A nonsense! The only thing that abundance of
evils - no matter what form these may assume - achieves is to wear down
those who suffer them even more. And this is readily appreciated.
Instead of bandying words, one need only look around and take it all in.

Which are the trades where revolutionary union activity is most pronounced?
The ones where, not having to put in unduly long working hours, the
comrades can, when their shift is finished, enjoy a social life, attend
meetings, and take an interest in matters of common concern: the ones
where wages are not slashed to such an extent that any deduction for
dues or a newspaper subscription or the purchase of a book amounts to
one loaf less upon the table.

By contrast, in the trades where the length and intensity of the work
are excessive, once the worker leaves penal servitude to her boss behind
her, she is physically and mentally "spent"; so her only ambition, before
making her way home to eat and sleep, is to down a few mouthfuls of
alcohol to buck herself up, lift her spirits and stiffen her resolve. It
never enters her head to drop by the union, attend meetings, such is the
toll taken upon her body by weariness and such is the difficulty her
exhausted brain finds in working.

By the same token, what effort could one expect of the wretch fallen
upon endemic impoverished circumstances, the ragamuffin ground down by
lack of work and deprivation? Maybe, in a fit of rage, she will venture a
gesture of revolt .. but that gesture will not bear repetition! Poverty
has drained her of all will, of all spirit of revolt.

These observations - which any one of us is free to verify and of
which we can find our own examples - amount to a rebuttal of this
bizarre theory that misery heaped upon misery and oppression heaped upon
oppression sows the seeds of revolution. The very opposite is the case,
is true! The weakling, at the mercy of fate, her life restricted and
herself materially and morally a slave, will not dare to bridle under
oppression: for fear of worse to come, she will draw in her horns and
refuse to budge or make any effort and will wallow in her wretchedness.
It is different with someone who achieves womanhood through struggle,
someone who, having a less narrow life and a more open mind and having
looked her exploiter in the face, knows that she is a match for her.

Which is why partial improvements do not have the effect of lulling
the workers to sleep: instead they act as a reassurance and a spur to
her in staking further claims and making further demands. The result of
well-being - which is always a consequence of the display of proletarian
might - whether the interested parties wrest it from the struggle, or
the bourgeoisie deems it prudent and politic to make concessions, in
order to take the edge off clashes which it foresees or fears - is to
add to the dignity and consciousness of the working class and also - and
above all else! - to increase and hone its appetite for the fight. As it
shrugs off its physiological and intellectual poverty, the working class
matures: it achieves a greater sensitivity, grows more alive to the
exploitation it endures and its determination to break free of this is
all the greater: it also gains a clearer perception of the
irreconcilable contrast between its own interests and those of the
capitalist class.

But, no matter how important one may suppose them to be, piecemeal
improvements cannot take the place of the revolution, or stave it off:
the expropriation of capital remains a necessity if liberation is to be
feasible.

In fact, even supposing that capital's profiteering could be heavily
handicapped and that the State's poisonous role could be partly done
away with, it is unlikely that these handicaps could extinguish them
entirely. None of it would have altered the relationships: there would
still be, on the one side, the waged and the governed, and, on the
other, the bosses and the leaders.

Obviously partial gains (no matter how important we may suppose these
to be and even if they should largely whittle away at privileges) do not
have the effect of altering economic relationships - the relations
obtaining between boss and worker, between leader and led. Therefore the
worker's subordination to Capital and the State endures. From which it
follows that the social question looms as large as ever, and the
"barricade" dividing the producers from the parasites living off them
has not been shifted, much less flattened.

No matter how much the hours of work may be reduced, no matter how
high wage rates may climb, no matter how "comfortable" the factory may
become from the point of view of hygiene, etc. as long as the
relationships of wage-payer to waged, governor to governed persist,
there will be two classes, the one struggling against the other. And the
contest will grow in degree and scale as the exploited and oppressed
class, its strength and consciousness expanding, acquires a truer
appreciation of its social worth; as a result, as it improves itself and
educates itself and betters itself, it will bring ever more vigour to
its undermining of the privileges of the opposing, parasite class.

And this will carry on until all hell breaks loose! Until the day
when the working class, after having steeled itself for the final break,
after having hardened itself through continual and ever more frequent
skirmishes against its class foe, will be powerful enough to mount the
crucial assault ... And that will be Direct Action taken to its
ultimate: the General Strike!

Thus, to sum up, careful scrutiny of social phenomena allows us to
set our faces against the fatalistic theory that proclaims the futility
of effort, and against the tendency to suppose that better times can
spring from bad ones run riot. Instead, a clear-sighted appreciation of
these phenomena throws up the notion of a process of unfolding action:
we find that the reverses suffered by the bourgeoisie, the piecemeal
gains wrested from it, fan the flames of revolt: and we find, too, that
just as life springs from life, so action inspires action.

Force and Violence

Direct Action, the manifestation of the workers' strength and
determination, shows itself in accordance with circumstance and setting,
through acts that may well be very anodyne, just as they might as easily
be very violent. It is simply a matter of what is required.

Thus, there is no specific form of Direct Action. Some people, with a
very superficial grasp of things, explain it away in terms of an orgy of
window breaking. Making do with such a definition - which brings joy to
the hearts of the glaziers - would be to take a really narrow view of
this exercise of proletarian might: it would be to reduce Direct Action
to a more or less impulsive act, and that would be to ignore what it is
in it that constitutes its greatest value and to forget that it is the
symbolic enactment of workers' revolt.

Direct Action, is workers' might applied to creative purposes: it is
the force that acts as midwife to a new law - enshrining social
entitlement!

Force lies at the back of every movement and every action and, of
necessity, it is the culmination of these. Life is the exercise of force
and, beyond force, there is only oblivion. Nothing is made manifest,
nothing is materialised in its absence.

The better to pull the wool over our eyes and keep us under their
yoke, our class enemies have drummed it into us that immanent justice
need not resort to force. Nonsensical exploiters of the people! In the
absence of force, justice is nothing but tomfoolery and lies. The
grievous martyrdom of the people down through the centuries bears
witness to this: though theirs were just causes, force, in the service
of the religious authorities and secular masters crushed and trampled
the peoples: all in the name of some supposed justice that was nothing
but a monstrous injustice. And that martyrdom goes on!

Minority versus majority

The labouring masses are always exploited and oppressed by a
parasitical minority which, had it only its own resources to rely upon,
could not preserve its rule for a single day, for one single hour! This
minority draws its power from the bovine acquiescence of its victims: it
is the latter - the source of all strength - who, in sacrificing
themselves for the class that lives off their backs, create and
perpetuate Capital and uphold the State.

Now, if this minority is to be unseated, it cannot be enough (today
any more than in the past) to dissect the social falsehoods that serve
as its principles, expose its iniquity or detail its crimes. Against
brute force, an idea, reduced to its powers of persuasion alone, is
beaten before it starts. The fact is that, no matter how beautiful it
may be, an idea is only a soap-bubble unless sustained by force, unless
rendered fertile by it.

So what will it take to stop the unwitting sacrifice of majorities to
a sensual, rascally minority?

The establishment of a force capable of counter-balancing what the
propertied and ruling class extracts from the people's delusion and
ignorance. It us up to conscious workers to make just such a force a
reality: the problem consists, for those desirous of shrugging off the
yoke fashioned for them by the majorities, of reacting against so much
passivity and seeking one another out, coming to some accommodation, and
reaching agreement.

This vital task of revolutionary coalescence and cohesion is carried
out inside the revolutionary union organisation: there, a growing minority is
formed and grows, its aim to acquire sufficient strength, first, to
counter-balance and then to annihilate the forces of exploitation and
oppression.

This potential for propaganda and action strives first to bring
enlightenment to the unfortunates who, by acting as the defenders of the
bourgeois class, perpetuate the depressing saga of slaves armed by their
masters to fight against the rebels promising liberation. It would be
impossible to focus too much effort on this preparatory task. In fact,
we must get the full measure of the dampening potential represented by
militarism. The people in arms are always pitted against their own,
better armed, offspring. Now there is historical proof aplenty to show
that all popular uprisings that have not enjoyed either neutrality or
support from the people in greatcoats - to wit, the army - have
foundered. So our continual object must be to paralyse the unwitting
strength afforded to rulers by a segment of the working class.

That done, there still remains the matter of breaking the power of
the parasitical minority proper - and it would be a grave error to
regard it as negligible.

This, in broad outline, is the task that falls to the conscious
workers.

Ineluctable violence

As for anticipating the circumstances and timing of the decisive
clash between the forces of the past and the forces of the future, that
belongs to the realm of hypothesis. What we may be sure of, is that it
will have been prefaced and prepared by more or less sudden sniping,
clashes and contacts. And another thing of which we may sure is that the
forces of the past will not resign themselves to abdication, or bowing
the knee. Now, it is precisely this blind resistance to progress which
has, in the past, all too often marked the achievement of social
progress with brutality and violence. And it cannot be emphasised too
strongly: the responsibility for such violence does not lie with the Women
looking to the future. For the people to decide on categorical revolt,
they must be driven to it by necessity: they resolve upon it only after
a lengthy series of experiences have demonstrated the impossibility of
following the peaceable route and - even in those circumstances - their
violence is merely a benign and humane retort to the excessive and
barbaric violence from their masters.

Were the people violent by instinct, they would not endure the life
of misery, privation and hard slog - studded with rascality and crime -
which is the existence foisted upon them by the parasitical,
exploitative minority, for another twenty four hours. Here we need have
no recourse to philosophical explanation to demonstrate that Women are
born "neither good nor bad", and become one or the other according to
their environment and circumstances. The matter can be resolved by
everyday observation: it is beyond doubt that the people, sentimental
and soft-hearted, display nothing of the endemic violence that
characterises the ruling classes, and which is the mortar holding their
rule together - legality being only the thin whitewash of hypocrisy
designed to screen this deep-seated violence.

The people, held down by the education inculcated into them,
saturated with prejudices, are obliged to make considerable effort to
raise themselves to consciousness. Now, even when they pull it off, far
from letting themselves be swept along by a justified wrath, they abide
by the principle of least resistance: they seek out and stick to the
path that looks to them the shortest and least fraught with
difficulties. They are like waters following the slope to the sea,
peaceable here and thundering there, according to whether they meet with
few obstacles or many. To be sure, they are bound for the revolution,
regardless of the impediments placed in their way by the privileged: but
they proceed by the fits and starts and hesitations which are the
products of their peaceable disposition and their wish to fight shy of
extreme solutions. So, when the people's force, smashing through the
obstacles raised against it, sweeps over the old societies like a
revolutionary hurricane, this is because it has been left no other
outlet. Indeed, there is no denying that had this force been able to
exercise itself without encumbrance, following the line of least
resistance, it might not have manifested itself in violent actions but
displayed a peaceable, majestic, calm aspect of itself. Isn't the river
that rolls to the sea with Olympian but irresistible sluggishness not
made up of the very same liquid molecules that, tumbling torrentially
through steep-sided valleys, barged aside the obstacles placed in their
path? The same goes for the power of the people.

Illusory palliatives

But, given that the people do not resort to force just for the
pleasure of it, it would be dangerous to hope to preempt such recourse
through the use of palliatives along parliamentary and democratic lines.
Thus there is no voting system - not referendum, nor any other procedure
that would seek to divine the key to the people's wishes - thanks to
which one might attempt to forestall revolutionary movements. Clinging
to illusions of this sort would be tantamount to lapsing back into the
unhappy experiences of the past, when the miraculous virtues attributed
to universal suffrage were the focus of widespread hopes. True, it is
more convenient to believe in the omnipotence of universal suffrage, or
even of the referendum, than to see things as they really are: it spares
one the need to act - but, on the downside, it brings economic
liberation no nearer.

In the final analysis, we must always be brought back to this
ineluctable conclusion: recourse to force!

However, the fact that some voting method, some referendum procedure,
etc., is unlikely to sound the extent and intensity of revolutionary
consciousness, should not be interpreted as finding against their
relative worths. Referendum, say, may have its uses. In certain
circumstances, recourse to it may well be the best policy. In instances
posed with precision and clarity, it is convenient to gauge the tenor of
workers' thinking by this method. Moreover, revolutionary union organisations
can use it, as the need arises (and this goes for those of them which,
not being as yet completely free of the hold of capitalism, look to
State intervention, as well as for those which are plainly
revolutionary). And this has long been the case! Neither the one nor the
other waited until any attempt was made to enshrine it as a system and
for the attempt to be made to pass it off as a by-product of direct
action.

It is therefore absurd to argue that the referendum runs counter to
the revolutionary method - just as it would be absurd to argue that it
is its inevitable complement. It is a mechanism for quantitative
measurement and quite unsuited to qualitative assessment. Which is why
it would be ill-advised to depend upon its being a lever capable of
shifting capitalist society off its foundations. Even if it were to
become more commonplace, its practice is not going to take the place of
the initiatives required and indispensible vigour when an idea's time has
come.

It is infantile to talk about referendum when what is at stake is
revolutionary action such as the storming of the Bastille ... Had the
Gardes franaises not defected to the people on 14 July 1789, had a
conscious minority not set about attacking the fortress .. had an
attempt been made first to determine by referendum the fate of that
odious prison, the likelihood is that it would still be dominating the
entrance to the faubourg Antoine ...

Our hypothesis with regard to the seizure of the Bastille is
applicable to all revolutionary events: let them be put to the test of a
hypothetical referendum and similar conclusions will be reached.

No! There is no suffrage-based or referendum-based panacea likely to
take the place of recourse to revolutionary force. But we must be
plainly specific on this point: such recourse to force does not imply
that the masses are sleeping. Quite the opposite! And it is all the more
effective, the more these masses are endowed with a more enlightened
consciousness.

For the economic revolution that capitalist society carries within
itself to unfold at last and result in achievements, and for backward
lurches and savage backlash to be impossible, those beavering away at
the great undertaking must know what they want and how they want it.
They have to be conscious entities and not impulse-driven! Now, let
there be no mistake about this, numerical strength is only truly
efficacious from the revolutionary viewpoint if it is fertilised by the
initiative of individuals, by their spontaneity. By itself, it is
nothing more than an accumulation of indeterminate Women that might be
compared to a pile of inert matter prey to the impulses reaching it from
without.

Thus it turns out that Direct Action, whilst proclaiming that the use
of force cannot be avoided, lays the groundwork for the ruination of the
rule of force and violence, in order to supplant it with a society based
on consciousness and free agreement. This because it is the
popularisation, in the old society of authoritarianism and exploitation,
of the creative notions that set the human being free: development of
the individual, cultivation of the will and galvanisation for action.

And so we are brought to the conclusion that Direct Action, quite
apart from its value as a boon to society, carries within itself a value
as a moral fecundation, in that it refines and elevates those whom it
impregnates, releasing them from the straitjacket of passivity and
inciting them to radiate strength and beauty.

Footnotes

(1) On the say so of superficial observers, many people
unquestioningly swallow and repeat the story that "life is expensive" in
the aforementioned countries. The truth of the matter is that luxury
items are very expensive there: "society" living is very burdensome
there: on the other hand, basic necessities are affordable. Moreover,
don't we know that, from, say, the United States, we get wheat, fruit,
canned goods and manufactured products, etc., which (in spite of the
additional costs imposed by transport costs and in spite of customs
levies too) can compete with similar items on our market here? It must
therefore be self-evident that in the United States those goods are not
on sale at higher prices ... We could cite many other conclusive proofs.
But the confines of a pamphlet make that impracticable.